A Hero's Chance
by ParanoidSylph
Summary: In the immediate aftermath of his final battle with the Calamity, Link is sucked through a portal into an unfamiliar world. Louise is put out by her new familiar, but endeavors to make the most of the situation. Back in Hyrule, Zelda takes on a quest of her own: she will find her lost knight and bring him back.
1. Prologue: Calamitous

**A/N: this is completely unbeta'd and written in my phone's notes app. Spot any errors? DM me! If you leave corrections in a review just pls try to leave your thoughts on the story there as well. See the end for more notes.**

* * *

**x**

**A Hero's Chance**

**Prologue: Calamitous**

**Chapter summary: The end of an era.**

**x**

Link's breathing is heavy and pained when Zelda's bow appears between him and the Calamity. Racing his horse as fast as she'll go, he quickly dismisses Revali's bow back to the depths of his korok-enhanced pouch; the poor weapon is on its last legs, the fine string worn down and the polished wood pocked from battle and nearly splitting from overuse. His attention is back just in time to snap the glowing bow out of the air. Divine energy seeps through his battered arm and down his spine—it must be Zelda, helping the only way she can.

_The Bow of Light. When wielded by the hero, it fires arrows of pure light strong enough to oppose the Calamity._

Shooting the glowing targets Zelda paints across the giant's hide would have been the easiest thing Link had ever done, but each step the beast takes crushes trees twice Link's size and sends tremors through the ground; with each toss of its head its mighty tusks gouge holes the size of houses into the dirt. Its fiery breath shoots hot and bright, scorching black everything it touches. The Calamity's pure demonic form is slow, and Link is nothing if not fast, but Link is tiny and those cloven hooves are gargantuan; they cover half a kilometer in one stride, six times faster than his steed can keep up with—or dodge away from. The other champions' magics buzz low in the back of his mind, too spent to use for another few minutes at least. Though he might just need it soon, lest he be trampled to death, Mipha's gift is by far the dimmest of the four.

It's close call after close call, but the divine arrows conjured by the Bow of Light shoot the straightest he's ever shot and those targets glow warm like a beacon against the roiling purple sludge of the demon's flank. His horse is a little thing like himself, reliable, Bokoblin trained and hard to spook, so though her gallop sends jolts of pain through his wounds at least she doesn't bolt wildly away from the Calamity's lasers like a lesser horse might have been inclined to do. It's only a matter of time before Zelda's voice rings out in his head one last time, though he thinks for the first time in a century he might be able to hear her voice aloud as well. She says to target the Calamity's final week spot. So, he does.

He prepares his own magic, lets it curl around his fingertips and blur the edges of his vision. Breathes slow as the malice beast roars behind him. _Steady_. The second a glowing eye forms from the malice at the center of the beast's head, he leaps from the saddle and draws back the bowstring. His magic rushes forward and time around him slows as he launches a single light arrow toward the eye.

Of course, despite all of Link's injuries weighing his limbs down, his arrow still flies true. The dark, bubbling malice making up the Calamity's terrible boar-shaped body explodes into golden light. A shockwave of pure radiant energy blooms from the demon's insides and knocks Link through the air. It's all he can do to pull out his paraglider, and jerking the Rito contraption from his bag jars his dislocated shoulder and sends a lance of heat and pain through his side, where he knows he has a deep half-cauterized wound he received from the Calamity's flaming axe during the second stage of this battle.

He's still riding the gale-force winds from Ganon's destruction when his body fails him. His stamina runs out and he tumbles across the scorched and trampled grass, rolling up and over a boulder. His heartbeat pulses in his ears when the frantic tumble finally ends, but he knows his bag is empty of meals. Even if he had anything cooked, he doesn't think he could will an _apple_ into his hand if he tried, let alone a full meal. Somehow, Mipha's lightscale armor has held up through the abuse, and Urbosa's bejeweled shield clanks uncomfortably as he manages to roll himself onto his stomach.

Link can tell the wounds that a fairy cured an hour or so ago had reopened in his fall. His ears are ringing. The Master Sword hums a major chord from within her sheath across his back; he can almost feel it when her glow finally dims, for what will hopefully be the last time.

He hears Zelda's voice carry from across the field. Not in his head this time. _Good_. The princess is free. They finally defeated the Calamity.

The soft suede nose of his mare nudges his face, nibbles at his hair. She's safe too. He really needs to name the animal, and soon—there are too many "shes" in his life by now—

The horse, his brave, fearless horse, suddenly backs up with a distressed neigh. What could possibly have startled this wild thing that just helped him defeat the greatest demon Hyrule has ever known? With great pain and a sinking feeling like a stone in his gut, he carefully turns to meet his fate.

Something green, glowing like the wisps that surrounded his comrades' ghosts when he released them from the Divine Beasts, floats next to him. His vision is double, triple, blurring like he's using his magic but without the energy drain. He can't make out what it is. It's almost instinctive, barely a conscious decision when he musters what's left of his willpower to reach out and touch it.

Zelda's voice is closer than it was before, but still so far. He still can't decipher what she's saying except for the worried lilt of her voice. His field of view darkens. Turns green.

When Link first entered the ruins of the Temple of Time, long before he regained the precious few memories of his past life stored on the Sheikah Slate, he thought he could hear a tune on the wind—scattered clusters of notes playing through the rafters. Maybe, possibly, it was a memory he hadn't recovered. Now with that green overtaking his sight, that song plays in full, over and over again in his head until he's gone.

* * *

**A/N:**

**Link, who is 118 years old: *falls and breaks his hip after the final battle***

**Someone better get this old man Life Alert I stg**

**notes:**

• **Controversial opinion but Link totally has magic in-game. He can stop time mid-fight to change weapons. More importantly, he can ****_slow time to a crawl when he's shooting mid-air or dodging attacks_****. That's not normal. He's not gaining any new unnecessary powers in this fic, don't worry. I'm just calling it how I see it.**

• **Mipha's Grace reloads in something like 20 minutes of gameplay, I think. One minute of gameplay is one hour in-game. So, you can only use Mipha's Grace about once a day in-game. Suffice to say, Link has many hours left to wait before Mipha can bring him back from the brink of death again. F**

• **yes, he's wearing the Zora armor Mipha gave him to fight Ganon. I love that trend among gamers and in this house we stan Mipha**

• **We callin the Master Sword "she" in Link's pov because even though Fi isn't in BotW and she probably won't make an appearance in this fic she's still the spirit of the Sword that Seals the Darkness. Some subconscious part of Link would know that. I'm not bending on this**

• **This fic is named after the trance remix of the Hyrule Castle theme by Emdasche! You can find it on youtube, it's a bop**

**x**

**Chapter 1 is already written (and already much longer than this prologue), but I miiiight add a second Prologue just to set some things up for later on. I'll probably update March 31st or April 7th, 2019. See you next time, and thanks for reading!**


	2. Prologue 2: Firsts

**A/N:**** this is completely unbeta'd and written in my phone's notes app. Spot any errors? DM me! See the end for more notes.**

* * *

**x**

**A Hero's Chance**

**Prologue 2: Firsts**

**Chapter summary: Zelda fights.**

**x**

For Her, the century lasts both an eternity and only a thousand tiny moments. She is barely lucid for most of Her time battling the Calamity; as it turns out, suppressing an ancient entity's consciousness requires Her to suppress Herself as well. Between the stretches of time spent numb in the bright void of Her magic, She recalls flashes of action—the Calamity bucking from Her grip in an attempt to escape; a set of impermanent arms, glowing with the holy power granted by the goddess blood flowing through Her veins, reaching out from pools of liquid light into the murk and reek of the Calamity's kinesphere; Her lit hands wrapping soundly around a sinewy neck, throttling the monster with a strength She never knew She possessed and dragging it back into the light of the void. Those are the only moments She has a real body, and She can feel Ganon's demonic power churning in a gut She forgot She ever had as it calls its servants back from the dead. Every time, Her eyes take in the red light of the moon like She's never comprehended color before—like She's never had eyes to see with before—but observing the real world in these moments is not what She was made for. Her only task is to keep the demon down in the abyss, and She does. In those flashes Her ephemeral body surges out and pulls the Calamity back into the light, drowning them both.

In the numb eternities between the Calamity's little rebellions, She doesn't know Herself from the light. She sees everything that happens in the land that might have been Her kingdom, once, but feels nothing for it. In the light, She is not _Zelda_, who lost her comrades, her kingdom, and her freedom to the Calamity; rather, She is the breath of wind that tames the grasses in Hyrule Field, She is every drop of water that sprays and thunders from the rapids in Faron, She is the screech of metal carts as they travel on rusted rails across Death Mountain. She is both everything and nothing, both the Goddess and every insignificant grain of sand in the desert. For most of the century, the Hylian princess "Zelda" doesn't exist at all.

It is amid this jarring sense of _everythingness_ that She feels something change. Deep in a cave on a plateau, Her life-giving waters part as an altar ascends from the depths, revealing someone who has lain there since before She can remember for the first time in a century. She knows this man—_Zelda_ knows this man, and Her entire being focuses on this one moment. Zelda finally, finally regains a mind to think with and lips to speak to him as he wakes.

_"Link..."_

**x**

Zelda watches his adventures in the time between blood moons, now. The overwhelming ocean of her power recedes with his awakening, and she knows who she is, what she is doing, and what has been done to her for the first time since she started this whole endeavor. She keeps the Calamity down as well as she can while remaining conscious, but it seems Link's awakening strengthened the demon's resolve just as it strengthened hers.

Through Link's struggles regaining his memories, relearning his combat and culinary skills, and mastering both their friends' magics and his own reality-bending abilities, Zelda observes it all. Her newfound consciousness means she can feel emotions again, and she is worried for him nearly every moment he spends on this quest. With so few memories—Goddesses forgive Zelda for that—he is quite a bit more reckless, though no less quiet than he was in her lifetime. He collects fireflies for random strangers, saves travelers from monster attacks while clad in nothing but his undies, eats raw, bloody meat unflinchingly straight-faced, plays matchmaker for more than a few couples. He doesn't maintain his weapons—granted, he has never been good at that—and they shatter in his hands before he can rid himself of them. He climbs sheer cliffs and windmills overlooking canyons and steep, smooth spires, each time nearly falling to his death for the sake of getting a single seed from a childish forest spirit. He rides lynels and mountain gods _just because he can_.

Once upon a time she might have been annoyed with his shenanigans, but she has waited a hundred years in the stupor of _being Hyrule_ so she supposes she can wait a bit longer. Watching this _wilder_ version of her knight and all of his eccentricities as he traverses the continent is a welcome reprieve.

Still, the Calamity is stirring, and she can't spend another century fighting and waiting for Link to help her. _"You must hurry, Link..."_

**x**

It's nearly a year after Link woke in that shrine before he storms Hyrule castle for good. He had come a handful of times before in search of weapons and supplies—the day he retrieved his old shield was suspiciously close to his eighteenth birthday, though retrospectively Zelda thinks he may not have known that at the time—but something about his approach this time around tells her he's finally ready. Every shrine has been activated, every Great Fairy has been freed from her watery prison, every Divine Beast is back under control and out of Ganon's hands. Link's bag is overflowing with Korok magic, his armor is overflowing with Fairy enhancements, and his body is overflowing with the magical gifts of their fallen allies and the vitality only a goddess can provide. The Sword that Seals the Darkness glows blue in his hand.

Zelda will help him in any way she can.

**x**

When Zelda lands delicately in the scorched remains of Hyrule Field after the Calamity's final defeat, she realizes the scope of everything she missed during that horrific century. The skin on her arms tingles as the sun shines on it through the smoke in the air. The grass bends and crunches under her bare feet with every step. The air that fills her lungs for the first time in a hundred years is warm, but not hot, and she doesn't mind the taste of ash in her mouth because she can _taste_ again. She can _feel_ again. Her body is corporeal and she is alive. And most of all, in this life at least, she will never have to return to that void of her magic ever again.

"Link!" Her vocal cords vibrate pleasantly in her throat as she finally verbalizes the words she's been projecting to her knight all this time. She stumbles towards where she saw him go down, her shaking legs unused to carrying her own weight. She can barely contain her joy at simply _existing, _so she can't care less about what's '_proper for a lady_' when she raises her voice and calls to him again, "Link, we did it! You were incredible—"

She stops for a moment then. She can see Link's horse across the field, the mare's nose bent over a boulder. _Link must be over there_, she thinks. But before she can get her legs working properly again, she sees the horse spook backwards as green light flashes on the other side of the boulder.

The princess doesn't think. "Link!" She shouts, running as fast as her unsteady legs will carry her to where her knight should be. She nearly ploughs into the horse's flank when she bungles her stop, but the mare is surprisingly patient with her as it catches her with its broad head. Her legs collapse underneath her as she looks to the place where her knight once lay, and it's only instinct when she slings an arm over the horse's neck to catch herself.

Link was definitely there only seconds ago; the grass is still depressed in the shape of a person, and bloody stains have turned some parts of the ground underneath to mud. Her Bow of Light lies innocently next to an unsheathed and painfully dull Master Sword in the trampled patch of grass, as if they'd been dropped there by someone with every intention of picking them up later. But Link is gone.

* * *

**A/N: **

**come on guys there is _one fic_ in the whole archive where Link doesn't keep the Master Sword in the beginning. Calm down. I got my reasons. **

**Notes: **

• **yall didn't really think I was gonna abandon Zelda and Hyrule for this fic, did you? Nah. I got BIG plans for ya girl Zelda. And the Master Sword ain't finished either. We're not done yet folks**

**x**

**Sorry for how late this release is, after I posted the first prologue college really started kicking my ass. Plus I was looking at what I already wrote for Chapter 1 and 2 and I was like "yeah just one prologue ain't gonna fly for my setup" so I had to wait until I could find time between assignments to write up this second prologue**

**My semester ends May 10th. Maybe a chapter will come out between now (Apr. 19) and then, but if not I'll do my best to finish editing Chapter 1 and post it by that Sunday, May 12. Thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 1: Strange Circumstances

**A/N: For everyone who's read this fic so far, thank you! And I wanna give a BIG thank-you to everyone who favorited, followed, and reviewed the last two prologues. I'm not writing this for the sake of getting popular or anything, so the response has been a pleasant surprise uwu**

**As usual, this is completely unbeta'd and written in my phone's notes app. Spot any errors? DM me! See the end for more notes.**

* * *

**x**

**A Hero's Chance**

**Chapter 1: Strange Circumstances**

**Chapter summary: Louise summons... something.**

**x**

The explosion that rocks the grounds of Tristain Magic Academy is massive. It sends plumes of black smoke belching into the sky, flings clouds of grit and dust into the air. Through the haze of smoke and ash, small fires light the lawn ablaze; only a few seconds prior that lawn had been immaculately groomed—perfect, even, enough to win a prize on the Academy's behalf. If explosions around here were any sort of rarity, certainly at least one groundskeeper would be very upset with the new burns marring the award-winning field.

Alas, explosions aren't a rarity at this renowned school of magic. At least, they aren't a rarity when it comes to this specific class of second years.

"Hah! Of course this happened again."

"What was that incantation even supposed to be?"

"'My beautiful, wise, powerful familiar'? Give me a break, Louise!"

"Professor Colbert, can you finally kick her out now?"

Louise Françoise de La Vallière stands at a precipice. Behind her is a long, painful history of being subpar; though she is dedicated, driven, ever studious, and at the top of her classes academically, her frankly abysmal affinity for magic has left her one of the worst students the acclaimed academy has ever seen. A disappointment and shame to her family's good and noble name. This, the Springtime Familiar Summoning, is a rite of passage for all young mages-to-be. It's her big chance—and her final chance—to prove she can become somebody more than the unlucky third daughter destined to be wed to a man twice her age.

Louise de La Vallière also stands at another sort of precipice: a precipice which may or may not have been the result of yet another failed attempt at casting some kind—any kind!—of magic. As the acrid smoke from her explosion finally starts to dissipate into the cool morning air, she can make out, not even a foot in front of her, the start a brand new drop off. She blew a crater into the field with the force of her magical misfire.

Pardon her language, but Louise is truly and royally fucked.

Her jaw almost drops, but she catches herself; that's no way for a distinguished member of the nobility to act in the wake of a surprise. She coughs the grit from her mouth as delicately as she can, given the situation, and turns toward the professor standing a ways behind her. The man has his arm over his nose and mouth to guard from the smoke. Louise is mortified. "Professor Colbert," she says, "please allow me to attempt the spell once more!"

The professor looks conflicted and lowers his arm slightly to speak. "Miss La Vallière, I am sorry, but this kind of result is just too dangerous—" some of the smoke cuts him off as he accidentally breathes it in, and he leans back into his arm to cough. From beyond him in the crowd of students, Louise's bookish classmate Tabitha—who managed to summon a dragon of all things—chants a breezy spell that sends a peel of wind to blow the smoke away and out of the ceremonial clearing in which they all stood. Louise can't help the envy that bubbles up in her belly at the sight of that level of control. How is another second year able to do that without touching anybody with her spell, while Louise struggles to cast anything at all? Spell-sculpting is such a difficult art to master and yet—

Professor Colbert's voice cuts through Louise's spiraling thoughts: "Ah yes, thank you Miss Tabitha. Now, Miss La Vallière..."

The class, who have all been talking throughout Louise's failure and subsequent conversation with the professor, falls silent as they approach the crater. This draws the professor's attention, but for all Louise's childhood education on the art of subtlety, she doesn't notice. "Professor Colbert, I beg you, I must-"

"Miss La Vallière. Please turn around." Professor Colbert has a peculiar expression on his face as he peers over her shoulder towards the crater. Louise is not one to disobey direct orders from her seniors, so she does as she's told.

There at the bottom of the crater, previously obscured by the smoke, lies a figure. It seems vaguely humanoid, with two arms and two legs and a head turned away. But its hands and feet are webbed and its sapphire blue scales catch the light almost as well as the beautiful silver jewelry and matching filigree armor it wears. Louise isn't all too familiar with oceanic creatures—which is what this being must be, surely, with its iridescent scales—so the thing on its back puzzles her. It's some sort of colorful shield (or maybe it's a shell?) encrusted in gold and gemstones. _Something_ _so ornamental couldn't possibly provide much protection, could it? _Louise thinks_. Or maybe it's magical? Magical things are usually enhanced by their decorations_...

And what a thought that is. Louise, summon a magical creature as her familiar? It is all she's ever wanted: the perfect proof she isn't hopeless! At this point Louise would have been happy with even the most mundane familiar in the world, as long as she had a familiar at all. And now she does. She's actually summoned something!

Not even the dark mud clinging to its body can take away the splendor of its appearance. What a thing she has summoned, whatever it is. Except...

"I've never seen anything like that before. Have you, Tabitha?"

"Why isn't it moving...?"

"That's blood!"

The shrill screech that cuts through her classmates' comments comes from Montmorency de Montmorency, who by now stands very close to the edge of the crater along with the rest of the class. Still, despite the dread coiling snakelike around her internal organs at the idea that her familiar is covered in blood, Louise summons up all her noble indignance and whirls to face the nosy girl.

"I'm sure you would know a thing or two about bloodstains, Montmorency the Flood—"

"It's 'la Fère', you horrible—"

"She's right." Usually Louise cares little for the flowery nonsense that often comes from Guiche de Gramont's mouth, but the tone of his voice stops her. Montmorency stops too, but Louise decides that it's probably just because she's Guiche's girlfriend and not because she noticed his tone. "Louise, that is blood."

"How could you possibly know that?" Louise snaps back.

Guiche scowls. "You know my father is a general—"

"And my mother is a knight commander! It means nothing! You haven't—"

"I've studied his books, Louise!" The insufferable blond looks like he's going to toss his hands up in the air. "I would know. Your familiar is bleeding—"

"—And you're standing here arguing about it while your familiar needs help." Louise would know that mocking voice anywhere: her rival Kirche von Zerbst. Louise glares hard at the buxom redhead over her other classmates' heads, but the young woman continues, "That's just typical, La Vallière. You probably killed it with that explosion."

That snake tangled in her insides constricts. She couldn't have killed it... could she? Her blood rushes away from her face and, just as fast as before, she whips her head back around to look at the scaly thing lying in the pit.

Now that Louise is looking for the signs, she can clearly see that the familiar is battered. What she had originally thought of as mud is far too reddish to be so. But it's not dead. That much is clear. Nobody in the class had noticed it moving because they were all so focused on the argument. As she watches it pushes its body up on those webbed hands, arms shaking, so it can sit upright. It now sits only two yards away, though it still faces the forest beyond the grounds. The glint of glass in the morning sunlight catches her eye and for just a second she glances down to see a little empty bottle at the creature's side—a bottle with a long narrow neck and delicate butterfly wings attached to the bulbous base. That wasn't there before. The creature huffs a breath and shakes its head, its silver-decked head fins flapping as it does so. Now Louise can see something else that escaped her notice before: it had been lying on top of an empty scabbard—royal indigo in color and gilded to boot. A few inches longer than a broadsword. Now that scabbard is clutched in those strange hands as the creature looks down at it.

Obviously the creature is fine. That makes Louise angry—how dare it make her, a daughter of the most noble house of La Vallière, worry about it when it isn't even her familiar yet? She has had enough of being ignored.

"You!" She shouts. The creature startles. It sets down the scabbard and reaches a hand down to hover a few inches from a small pouch on its belt. Suddenly that empty hand holds a spear—a quarter-moon blade with a vicious barb at one point attached to a long silver pole decorated with blue lattice work—and the sheath on the ground dissolves into the Ether. The creature had barely twitched a finger and the spear had just... materialized in its hand. It's like no magic she has ever seen before. The creature rises and turns, quick and precise, but Louise barely sees a flash of a peachy color near its face before it bends double. It staggers, pressing its free hand over a particularly nasty gash in its side. The pointed butt of the spear slides easily into the earth beneath it as her future familiar jams it down to lean against the wicked-looking weapon like a crutch. Louise can hear the breath hissing through its gritted teeth.

She almost winces when she sees the wound start leaking against the dark skin of the creature's hand, but she holds it in. She needs to be strict. Like her mother. "You, familiar!" She calls again, anger and imperiousness in her voice. She can hear her classmates start muttering, but she ignores them in favor of reprimanding the being that will soon be her familiar.

It seems to gather itself at the sound of her voice. Good, maybe this will be easy. It slowly straightens and turns toward the crowd, and she finally gets a look at its face—

"You summoned a person?"

"That's not possible! People can't be familiars."

"It's not a person. The Zero probably paid a commoner to pretend to be her familiar because she knew she'd never be able to summon anything!"

"But that thing it did with its spear..."

"Maybe it's a shapeshifter and that's not its real face?"

"Please. No way someone like Louise could summon something like that."

Her classmates' sudden chatter is loud and obnoxious as usual, and the familiar's eyes—the _man's_ eyes flick to each teen as they speak. He's got a calculating look in his gaze and just a hint of a frown on his otherwise blank face. Louise can't read him.

Professor Colbert speaks to Louise, but his eyes are focused on the weapon the stranger is leaning on. "It appears you were able to summon a familiar, Miss La Vallière," he says. She can tell the chipper note he's trying to put into his voice is fake and strained. "Hopefully you will be able to complete the binding contract with more ease."

"This has to be a joke!" She exclaims, turning to her teacher. Out of the corner of her eye she can see the strange man's blue eyes snap to her, when he had previously been observing the other students. She doesn't care. "I can't have a human familiar! I must perform the spell again!"

But Colbert only shakes his head. "You can perform the summoning only once, Miss La Vallière. You must not do it again unless your current familiar has died." The teacher's gaze goes back to the man at the bottom of the crater. He addresses him next. "Sir, I must ask you to put that spear away. I will not tolerate threats against my students."

The man—barely a man, Louise realizes upon further inspection, he can't be more than two years older than her—furrows his blond brows in clear confusion. Louise heard nothing confusing in Professor Colbert's polite demand. She's about to put the demand into less cordial terms when the blond opens his mouth to reply.

Then he shuts it. Inhales like he's about to say something, then aborts the attempt halfway through. It's infuriating, watching the older teen flounder. Is he dumb? Louise is ready to shout when he finally gives up on words and starts gesturing with his hands.

When Louise was a child, her mother the Duchess de La Vallière told her stories of her time as a knight. Karin de Maillart, renowned as the Heavy Wind, met the heirs of many other noble houses throughout her campaigns as commander of the manticore knights before she married the Duke de La Vallière and inherited his name. One such scion was one Philibert de Savoy, a colonel of great magical power and accomplisment who was born deaf—an incurable malady, even for the best water mages in the land. Apparently, he traveled south in his childhood to learn to speak with his hands from a master in Romalia.

This, what her future familiar is doing... doesn't really look like that. The Duke de Savoy's handsigns correspond with syllables that are used to make up different words, from what she understands of her mother's explanation. The gestures this man's gloved hands form are too few in number to mean much of anything. And he's responded to voices, so at the very least he can't be deaf. So either her familiar is using a new form of handsigns she hasn't heard of before, or her familiar is a blithering idiot gesticulating at nothing when he should be on his knees begging forgiveness for scaring her and for pulling a weapon on nobility.

Professor Colbert seems to believe the signs mean something, at least. The older man puts a hand to his chin in thought. "How unusual..." he muses. The familiar's face is blank. Uncomprehending. That seems to spark something in Colbert, because he suddenly straightens. "Sir. Pardon me, but... can you understand us?" The teacher puts particular care into his inflection, making sure it sounds like a question and even raising his eyebrows near the end.

Though the familiar still looks lost, he seems to understand what Professor Colbert is trying to ask and shakes his head 'no'.

Professor Colbert brightens. "Well, that's an easy fix, then!" His staff glows as he starts chanting a translation spell. The familiar is wary and looks about ready to pull that gaudy shield from his back, but soon enough the spell is cast. The familiar wrinkles his nose a bit.

Colbert only smiles. "Can you understand us now, sir?"

Blond eyebrows shoot up and the familiar nods.

"And..." Colbert seems to think about his words for a moment. "...Can you speak?"

The familiar's face doesn't change. He considers for a second, then... just nods again. He didn't even try.

Louise wants to scream. She only stares. Those blue eyes meet her gaze and stare right back, and Louise can feel herself getting angrier and angrier by the second. His expression, on the other hand, gives away nothing.

She can't take it anymore. "Aren't you going to say something?" The question bursts out without her permission, but she won't take it back, even with the look her teacher shoots her in response.

The familiar regards her. Then he shrugs. If that's a smile Louise sees him trying to smother she'll—

"It's time for you to complete the ritual, Miss La Vallière," Colbert encourages her, gesturing to the stranger again with his staff. Maybe he can feel her malicious intent. "And sir," he continues, "You couldn't understand so I won't hold it against you, but I asked you earlier to please put that spear away. I don't want you threatening my students."

At the word "students", the blue-clad warrior's gaze flits back at the crowd of students still standing at the ledge where the crater begins. Louise thinks she sees understanding in his eyes before he's carefully blank again. Instead of—what, vanishing the weapon? Dematerializing it? Is there even a word for whatever power this strange person used to make that spear appear in the first place?—he hooks the spear into a holster on his back that hadn't been there before and waits with his hands on his hips.

It looks to Louise like that's the best they're going to get. Colbert seems to think the same thing, because he ushers her on ahead. "Go on, Miss La Vallière. You know what to do." When Louise opens her mouth to protest, Colbert frowns. "And no buts. You are going to complete your Springtime Familiar Summoning ritual." 'Or you are going to be kicked out of this academy' goes unsaid, but is nonetheless heard.

Louise squeezes her little hands into tight fists at her side. Squaring her shoulders, she hops daintily down to the bottom of the crater and practically marches up to the blond man. He's short, she realizes as she gets closer. Very short. Maybe only a couple inches taller than herself. Though that's still taller, he's also older, and that fact makes this whole experience gratifying enough that she unconsciously loosens the tension in her fists. She can do this. This can work. She finally steps up to him and only has to tilt her chin a little bit to look him in the eyes. "You should be thanking me for this," she mutters to him. Instead of acknowledging it when he tilts his head as if to say, 'thanking you for what,' she continues, "It's not every day a member of the nobility bestows this gift onto a commoner." His eyebrows rise. She misinterprets the look as surprise and her whole face flushes red. She grumbles, "Oh don't you say anyth— just, here—" and she reaches up, lays her hands on his cheeks, and pulls him down to seal the contract.

**x**

Link's mind has been buzzing since the moment he awoke someplace he doesn't recognize, but when the girl who reminds him of Zelda kisses him, Link shoves those anxieties aside to put his hands firmly on her shoulders and push her a step back. His brow furrows and he fights back the blood rising in his cheeks as he looks down at her. What was the point of that?

A stinging sensation on his hand catches his attention, and it only takes a second for that tingle to grow into an inferno. It's not the worst pain he's felt, but he can feel the magic burning something into his skin and sending painful sparks up his arm. He quickly pulls off his glove and gauntlet to reveal a pattern branded onto the back of his hand:

ᚷᚢᚾᛞᛟᛚᚠ

He stares at it, incredulous. It's not any text he recognizes—though he might not be the best judge of familiar and unfamiliar, considering his whole memory situation—and as he watches it fades from an incandescent glow to the bright ugly red of a fresh burn, and finally settles into the fleshy pink of an old scar. Only its slightly raised texture separates his new brand from the rest of the little white scars on his hand.

Link is still staring when the teacher clears his throat. "Well," the teacher—Colbert—says, "while you struggled with 'Summon Servant', Miss La Vallière, it appears your contract was perfect on your first try!"

Contract? The Hylian finally looks away from his hand to lay his gaze on the teacher, eyebrows raised in question.

"Thank you, Professor," the girl (he called her La Vallière?) replies. She then scrunches her nose at Link. "What's with that expression? You've never heard of a familiar summoning before?"

Before Link can shake his head 'no,' Colbert claps his hands to grab the class' attention. It seems the rest of the students had lost interest in Link and La Vallière a while ago because Link can see many people start to attention at the sound. "Well now, I believe that everyone has summoned a familiar. You should feel accomplished; today each and every one of you has taken a great step towards becoming respectable mages."

While Colbert speaks, La Vallière herds Link out of the crater and over to stand with the rest of the class. He does so reluctantly; the animals and creatures standing amongst the students seem docile enough, but he swears he can see a keese hovering in the crowd and he'd rather not get dive-bombed while standing in a group of children, thank you very much.

Colbert's gaze scans the crowd, looking at each student before finally settling on La Vallière and Link. Then he continues with a smile. "For now, you are all dismissed. You will have the rest of the day off to get to know your new familiars."

This, it seems, is the class' cue to leave. Link's eyebrows steadily rise on his forehead as he watches student after student pull out a polished stick of wood from their robes and levitate off towards a tower not too far away. He turns an expectant look on La Vallière (and systematically shoves a flush and puzzled frown away when he remembers the sudden kiss from ten minutes ago), half ready for her to fly off as well, when Colbert's voice catches him. "Miss La Vallière, if I might have a moment?"

His apparent summoner turns, and with nothing better to do, so does Link. "Yes, Professor Colbert?" She sounds nervous. "I know these are strange circumstances, but I really did summon him—"

Colbert merely nods. "Calm down, Miss La Vallière. If this man wasn't summoned by your ritual, the contract would never have stuck." At this point, Colbert looks at Link. "The contract is actually what I wanted to ask about. Sir..." the professor frowns. "I'm sorry, I don't believe we ever asked your name."

There's silence for a moment. Colbert and La Vallière share a glance as Link raises his hands... and crosses them over his chest. This answer is simple enough. "Link." His voice is hoarse and painfully soft from disuse, but it still manages to startle the two in front of him.

"So you can talk!" La Vallière exclaims. Link shifts his weight and shrugs. He did say that earlier, didn't he?

"Link. May I see the runes on your hand for a moment?" Colbert is all business. Link appreciates that. He sticks out his ungloved hand, palm down to show off the brand. As Colbert takes in the runes with a clinical eye, he doesn't seem taken aback at all by the rest of the scars on his hand—another fact Link appreciates. The Professor fishes a little notebook from the depths of his robe and jots down the symbols, muttering to himself a bit, before straightening up. "I must say, I have never seen runes like these before in all my years teaching! This is certainly a mystery I'll be looking into." With a nod at both Link and his summoner, Colbert tucks the notebook away and pulls out his own wand. "Well, enjoy the rest of the day, you two. I expect you have much to talk about." And with that, the professor incants a spell and levitates away like the rest of the class before him.

Link, now nearly alone with only La Valliere there, finally gives himself a moment to think. He had known the moment he woke up that he and Zelda were successful in defeating Ganon; the "how" and "why" he was brought here have been answered by the events still unfolding even now; what he's unclear about is how he's supposed to get back. Not to mention the vague nudging he had felt in his gut when he held the Master Sword's empty scabbard...

He shifts his weight, lost in thought, but this time pain twinges up his nerves from that axe wound in his side and he involuntarily flinches a hand towards it. The old fairy tonic he drank when he woke up got him back to his feet, but apparently it wasn't quite enough to close this injury. He hisses a breath and resolves to replenish his food supply as soon as possible. There's got to be some use for the 347 apples in his bag...

La Vallière clears her throat, and Link comes out of his head in time to hear her say, "Well, we ought to get moving then," before setting off towards the tower—on foot.

Link is no fool. He knows how quests work. The only reason he doesn't immediately set off on his own to explore the castle grounds around him is because he knows the only way he'll find out more about this 'contract' is by going with the girl who summoned him. Still, this knowledge doesn't stop him from looking around while he walks.

He's been summoned into a courtyard; to one side an oddly low castle wall with a walkway at ground-level underneath it connects two towers far taller than the guard towers on the Great Plateau and wider than those on Hyrule Castle. He has to crane his neck to see around the Keep at the center of the compound, but he counts five huge towers in total, all connected by those strange low walls. (The walls have no battlements, and he can't imagine the place is very easy to defend without them. What's the point of a wall if not for defence?) The courtyard is sectioned off from the rest of the grounds by arched stone walkways. From what he can remember of Hyrule Castle before the Calamity, a courtyard like this ought to be filled with stone paths circling around gardens, or at the very least should be paved and sectioned off for various different uses, but no; it's just a simple field of grass with a few shrubs, trees, and benches around the perimeter. He thinks back to the summoning, and how the other students left the field. Maybe this is what's practical for a magic school?

When they reach the tower the girl leads him up a flight of stairs, and Link supposes this must be where she lives if the nameplates on the doors they pass are any indication. On the way up he chows down a couple apples to take the edge off from the injury still healing on his side. He's working on his third apple when she finally stops at a door and unlocks it. When she turns around to let him in, her eyes narrow on the half-eaten apple in his hand. "Where did you get that?"

Link almost rolls his eyes at her suspicious tone, but he refrains and just shoves the apple, core and all, into his mouth to take another bite. It only takes a moment to will an apple out of the bag and into the free hand hovering next to his pouch. The girl's red eyes widen at the display of Korok magic—which Link is a little surprised about; if this is a school that teaches magic like he thinks it is, shouldn't the teachers have taught the students about the Koroks? It's true that most normal Hylians can't see them, but as far as he knows, the existence of Korok magic isn't a secret—and Link shakes off his confusion at her reaction to hold out the apple in offering.

She looks like she has half a mind to take it, but all she says is an annoyed, "Don't eat when you're not at a table. It's improper. Now come in."

She enters first, and Link, seeing no real reason to do otherwise, follows suit. The door closes with a soft click behind them.

**x**

**A/N. So, anyone here following Game of Thrones? The cinematography in the last episode KILLED me fam**

**A few notes:**

**• In DnD, "spell-sculpting" is a skill that makes it so AOE spells won't damage your allies. **

**• I've seen plenty of explanations for "Montmorency the Flood", but I always interpreted it as a period/menstruation joke. **

**•ZnT characters are all named after historical figures from the 30 Years War, so look up Emmanuel Philibert, Prince of Carignano if you wanna find out more about the rad deaf general who inspired "Philibert de Savoy"**

**• "can you understand this language?" *nods* "...can you speak?" *nods* is a reference to Tyrsinni's OoT/Majora's Mask time travel fic "Sands of Time", which can be found on AO3. **

**•Because of combating info in BoTW, we're gonna say that only people with a connection to magic can see Koroks. **

**•Link's pov is pretty short because the next stopping point I could imagine would probably have added another 5k. But dw next time he's a POV character it should be longer**

**•i'll be taking some creative license with the world building and events in ZnT. This whole chapter is just the beginning of that. Don't worry, though, we'll still hit on the canon events that seem like fun to write and, of course, the staple events that I think can't get cut out. **

**x**

**This is coming out a couple days late cos shit at my job popped off. As for next chapter: I have parts of it finished, but Colossalcon is coming up at the end of the month and I have a set of Zora armor to build between now and then for a Zelda shoot a friend set up, so next update won't be until around June 9th or later. Ciao!**


	4. Chapter 2: Journey

** A/N: me? updating? It's a Christmas miracle**

**As usual, I don't have a proofreader so if there are any glaring mistakes just lmk. See the end for more notes**

* * *

**x**

**A Hero's Chance**

**Chapter 2: Journey to Kakariko**

**Chapter summary: Zelda's travel montage part 1.**

**x**

* * *

After her mad dash to the place where her knight landed and subsequently vanished, it takes Zelda a few minutes to gather her bearings. The rush of adrenaline is gone, and with it all sensation and sound she was ignoring crashes into her like a tsunami. The lost princess sways on her feet; her century spent fighting the Calamity took its toll on her, and she knows that the body she wears now may not be the one she was born in—it feels new, flesh and blood magic-made to replace what was destroyed by her own magic. Every nerve is raw, sensitive. The horse's fur under her arms is suddenly painfully prickly, her legs sting where the grasses whipped her during her run to her knight's body, and every nearby cricket's chirp and lizard's rustle screams through her ears. But of all the new information she is processing, it's the disappearance that staggers her the most.

Link is gone. The Master Sword and Bow of Light rest in his place, each humming with energy, heedless to their wielder's disappearance. Link's horse nuzzles the grass where her master vanished at the duo's feet, and Zelda…

Zelda's legs give out underneath her, and her grip on the horse slackens as she falls to the ground. Her dress scrapes and stains over her knees when she hits the grass, but she pays it no mind as she thinks about what just happened. Link was there, and now he isn't. He was gone in an abrupt flash of _green_ light, nothing like the dissolving blue particles produced by Sheikah Slate travel she recalls him using during her brief spurts of consciousness over the past year. (Her brain may be a mess of overstimulation and ephemeral pieces of memory, but Zelda knows she's not misremembering something so integral to her own area of interest back during her first life. This was not normal teleportation.) Link is gone and Zelda has no idea what to do about it. She has no idea that she _can_ do anything about it.

As if reading her thoughts, a flicker of blue tears Zelda from her despair and brings her attention to the sword by her knee. The setting afternoon sun glints off the blade of the Master Sword, but blue light reflects from the blade instead of the natural orange of sunlight. _Its sheath is gone_, she dully notes. _Probably spirited away to the same place Link was taken_. Before she even notices what she's doing, the princess has already slipped one hand under the blade and the other around the grip. This proves to be a mistake. With an angry flash of that same blue light, the sword sears the delicate new skin of her palms. She hisses and quickly withdraws her hands. "What was _that_ for?" She yelps.

The sword, obviously, doesn't reply. Zelda never thought an inanimate object's silence could be so malicious.

"Well, what would you have me do?" She snaps at it. "I cannot leave you here in the middle of nowhere, but if you'll only let Link touch you—"

The Sword that Seals the Darkness flashes again, and Zelda gets the distinct impression that it dislikes the idea of being left behind almost as much as it dislikes the idea of anyone but Link holding it.

She is fully aware that she's arguing with a sword, an inanimate object, but that has never stopped her before. Glaring down at the weapon, she huffs and tears a strip from the hem of her tattered white gown and carefully wraps the weapon in it, studiously avoiding touching it with her bare skin. "I suppose… I suppose we'll just have to find him then, won't we?" Once she's finished wrapping it up, she clutches the bundle to her chest and turns to Link's horse.

The mare has given up her inspection of the disappearance site and gone on to graze nearby, but she seems to feel Zelda's gaze. She lifts her broad head to observe her with intelligent chestnut brown eyes. "Hello," the princess says, stepping forward hesitantly. The horse's answering whinny seems accepting enough, so Zelda takes another step. Then another. Soon enough she's stroking the mare's nose tenderly and walking around her side, keeping one hand on her flank so as not to spook her. The princess carefully straps the bundled sword to the mare's saddle and gives her a final pat before walking back to crouch in front of the other holy weapon on the ground.

The Bow of Light is far more amicable towards Zelda than the Master Sword. She only hesitates a second, wary of being singed again, but when she steels herself and wraps a hand around the bow's grip, the warmth that rushes through her hand isn't searing. On the contrary: holding the bow almost invigorates her as its energy tingles up her arm and settles comfortably in her chest. She stands up and slings the bow over her back. It feels familiar.

The horse allows her to mount up with no complaint, although she has to rip a slit in her already ruined dress to comfortably ride astride the mare's back. Mounted and ready to go with both sacred weapons safely secured, the lost princess of Hyrule sets off for the Dueling Peaks in the distance. Idly, she lays a hand on the bundled sword next to her calf. "We will find him," she repeats as she gazes out over the field ahead. The sword heats up to a temperature warm enough to feel through the fabric, though it quickly cools off before it can burn her again. For what it's worth, Zelda appreciates the blade's restraint.

After the final battle with the Calamity, Hyrule Field is quiet but for the occasional breeze blowing through the tall grasses. No monsters plague the plains anymore—as if the presence of their master drove them off instead of luring them in, as Zelda would have initially expected. She spots the tip of a fox's tail disappearing into the brush at one point, but otherwise the only life she spots aside from herself and Link's horse is the occasional cricket rustled up by their fast-paced gallop. Then they come upon the first Guardian.

The horse notices it first, immediately slowing from a breakneck speed to a more cautious canter. Zelda is a bit slower on the uptake, but only a few seconds of confused observation clues her in on its presence fairly quickly. A soothing hand on the mare's neck and a murmured "Shush, now," calms her nervous shuffling, but Zelda is far from calm no matter what she portrays to her mount. "I've no shield," she mutters to herself. She weighs her options as they approach: the Guardian hasn't noticed them yet, hasn't even turned its head from whatever it's staring at right now. Luck seems to be on her side, at least, considering it seems to be a grounded one instead of a walker. Maybe they could slip by unnoticed? Or perhaps the horse could outrun its range? She is pretty fast…

But something's not quite right. Zelda knows all of the Guardians in Hyrule Field were active every time Link passed through in his yearlong quest, yet this Guardian hasn't so much as twitched, let alone swiveled its head in any average Guardians' typical mockery of vigilance. They are almost upon it now. Coming to a quick decision, Zelda pulls the mare to a stop and dismounts, swiftly but carefully making her way to the frozen Guardian. It is clean, she notices. It's clean and all of its legs are still attached; yet it sits still on the ground. She lays a hand on its exoskeleton experimentally. Its stone shell is still warm, but it is cooling. It doesn't react to her touch at all. It must have died recently, but no burns or slashes pock its surface. But… it couldn't have died with the Calamity, could it? "That doesn't make sense," Zelda decides aloud. Link's horse whinnies and stomps her feet behind her. Zelda takes that as agreement and continues. "The Guardians were first possessed by the Calamity when they were already active. Shouldn't they remain active and simply return to their uncorrupted state now that the Calamity has been vanquished?" If she's honest, Zelda isn't sure how she feels about the Guardians after all the pain that the ancient Sheikah technology has caused, but… She shakes her head to dispel her thoughts. "Now is not the time to think about such things," she mutters to herself. "We have someplace to be." She mounts the horse again and together they continue the journey.

More spotless stone and metal carcasses of ancient Guardians dot the landscape, but all appear to be well and truly dysfunctional now that Calamity Ganon has been defeated. After the first one they pass doesn't respond to their presence, Zelda nudges the mare to pick up speed again and ignores the rest of the defunct Guardians they pass. At the faster clip, her long hair whips about her face and shoulders in the wind, but she refuses to let her hands leave the reins and risk slowing their pace just to tie it back. Tangled hair is the least of her concerns right now. Later, though? Well, she might just cut it all off if it continues getting in the way.

She doesn't bother with the dirt paths winding in and out of view in Hyrule Field as she travels due south, but she finally resigns herself to road travel when she cuts east over a bridge she only vaguely recalls the name of. The Dueling Peaks rise steadily ahead now as she follows the road along the riverbank.

Finally out of Hyrule Field, she starts seeing more signs of life here and there: a bokoblin encampment on the bank, an octorock popping up from distant underbrush, things of that nature. Those monsters don't seem to notice her—and if they do, they don't pursue or attack, which Zelda appreciates. With the sun just kissing the peak of Satori Mountain in the west, the princess knows they've been traveling for hours. Exhaustion pulls at her bones and her backside aches from riding so long. Link's mare has been more than happy to continue, seemingly tireless, but Zelda can't justify not allowing the horse to rest. Decision made, she slows the horse right at the base of the mountain, dismounts, and leads her by the reins to the riverside. The horse promptly starts drinking from the river. Zelda pulls Link's empty waterskin from the saddle and crouches a few paces upstream to refill it. While waiting for it to fill back up, her eyes shift upwards to gaze at the activated Sheikah tower across the river.

It's… beautiful. Zelda had been able to watch as Link activated three or four of the towers during his quest, but to see such ancient technology—the likes of which neither the Sheikah researchers nor she herself had ever been able to figure out, unlike the Guardians and Divine Beasts—humming with life again, a beacon shining blue over Hyrule like it was always meant to be there, is something entirely different to witness in person. She is in awe, of course, but she can't help the twinge of bitterness she feels in that moment. Zelda has always been the more intellectual of the two of them, the one less interested in conflict; and yet, she is the one who repaired war machines with her own hands. Link is the fighter, the knight, the one who does battle and kills monsters; and yet, he is also the one who was able to activate and use Sheikah technology that was _not_ purely for combat purposes. Over the past year, Link unlocked the shrines and activated the towers that never even flickered with energy when she attempted the same. During all of her field research when she couldn't get shrines to open or towers to come to life, he had always been right there beside her. Why didn't she ever think to have him try to enter a shrine?

A small splash disturbs the rhythmic babble of the river enough to jar Zelda from her thoughts. She tears her gaze from the tower to look down to the river in front of her, and what she sees makes her freeze.

Protruding from the choppy surface of the river not three feet in front of her is the purple-scaled, ivory-horned head of a Lizalfos. Its beady turquoise eyes watch her every move with chameleon-like precision. The water there isn't very deep, she knows; it must be crouching down on its forelegs, intentionally leaving only the top half of its head above water. Likely just to scare her. She might have laughed at the idea of a Lizalfos practicing its scary poses, if only it hadn't done its job.

She retracts her arm and the overflowing waterskin from the river very, _very_ slowly while holding the Lizal's gaze. Carefully, she twists in the cork and sets the skin on the bank. The monster watches on in silence. _Okay, okay. Good. This can work_, she thinks. One of her hands makes its way from the smooth rock under her to the grass-spotted sand behind her so she can shuffle away from the riverbank and out of the Lizalfos' range. She shifts her weight. Unfortunately for her, that's when her luck runs out.

She realizes the rock she is crouching on is covered in slick algae only after her foot has already slipped out from under her. She tumbles backward with an undignified yelp and her foot kicks out into the river, causing a large splash.

The Lizalfos chooses that moment to pounce. It slams the prone princess bodily into the ground, pushing the air from her lungs under its weight and raking at her wildly with its claws. Zelda struggles under it for a moment—her hands slip harmlessly from its slimy, algae-covered scales so she can't get a good enough grip to roll over on top of it, and one of her legs is twisted up under her body from her previous crouching position. Kicking up with her water-soaked leg is the only thing that manages to get the beast off her, and even then its horn leaves a bloody clip across her jaw for her trouble. She ignores the stinging cuts and bruises from the sudden attack, gets to her feet as fast as she can, and scrambles away to catch her breath.

But the monster finds its feet too, hissing and shrieking, and Zelda barely meets its eyes before it whips around faster than she can track and lashes out with its tail. She closely evades getting her neck lacerated, but the tip of its tail still neatly cuts a slash across her cheek. Her head turns with the force of the blow and she stumbles back. But she doesn't have time to reel. The monster is already gearing up to pounce again, so she follows her instinct and pitches sideways just in time to evade the attack. The movement jostles the bow on her back.

…_Wait a second._

She jumps away from a beam of water the Lizalfos spits at her—_gross_, she can't help thinking, _that cannot be sanitary_—and swings the bow off her shoulder. There are no arrows, but after a century of practicing her magic non-stop, summoning a mere light arrow is as simple as breathing. _Full immersion really is the best way to learn. Who knew?_ She thinks, then aims for its head.

Instead, the arrow sails harmlessly above it. Zelda curses her new body's lack of muscle memory. She scampers away from another tail strike, this one missing her arm by a hair's width, and nocks another arrow. "Come on," she whispers as she looses it.

Thankfully, it hits. This time she aims lower—for the heart instead of the head—and though the arrow misses her mark by a few inches it still buries itself in the purple-scaled hide of the monster's shoulder. The Lizalfos' death is almost anti-climactic: just a screech and a thump as its body hits the ground. She knows she ought to loot the body, although the more squeamish side of her protests the thought. Before she can do anything, though, another splash and screech catch her attention. She turns around, nocking and drawing as she moves. Another Lizalfos has leapt from the river towards her. She bites back a groan, rolls her eyes, and lines up the shot again.

And then there's a furious neigh as Link's steed rears up on her forelegs and kicks the Lizalfos in the face. It skips over the water twice, limbs flailing like a puppet with cut strings, and finally sinks as the current drags it away. Zelda lets out a heavy breath. She slings her bow back over her shoulder, collects the discarded waterskin, and dispassionately faces the body.

It's nothing special. She's seen Link loot monster corpses before and she's killed her own fair share of monsters before the century spent with Ganon. It's still disgusting, though. The monster's horn comes off easily when she yanks it. She thankfully can't go for its guts because she doesn't have a knife—aside from the Master Sword, which she wouldn't use for such a menial task as skinning and removing monster parts even if the sword would allow her to wield it. She's not too torn up about it. She has no bags aside from Link's saddlebags, which were made for carrying food and rupees and definitely not for monster parts. Does she want to walk around at twilight carrying raw, bleeding monster guts in her bare hands? No thank you. Maybe some people enjoy that kind of thing, but certainly not her. That's where Princess Zelda draws the line.

After looting what she can, she rinses her hands in the river and pulls an apple from one of those saddlebags. "You couldn't have kicked that first one too?" Zelda grumbles, running a gentle hand down the mare's velvety nose and encouraging her to eat the apple. The mare does so eagerly, nuzzling Zelda's hands and chest afterwards, looking for another. The princess giggles a bit when the horse starts lipping at her hair. "Yes, yes. Thank you for your help." She runs a hand through the horse's glossy mane and asks aloud, "I wonder what he named you…"

A chilly breeze blows off the water, and Zelda is suddenly _very_ aware of just how much of her dress got torn to ribbons in that first attack. She's covered well enough, but what was once a calf-length dress now barely brushes her knees and now parts of her thighs are exposed through the layers of shredded fabric. Her prayer gown was never built to withstand much more than getting snagged on rocks or trees, let alone monster attacks. She should count herself lucky those Lizalfos didn't have weapons. Mindful of her new injuries and state of dress, Zelda is more careful getting up on the saddle this time than she was before. Riding astride was a puzzle she quickly solved when the dress was longer, but now she reluctantly decides that riding sidesaddle is the safest option for all parties. _Hylia forbid I run into a traveler and accidentally… _She can't even bear to finish the thought. _What a way for the lost princess to return._

She has to set a more sedate pace than the breakneck speed at which they traveled before, so the sun has been down for half an hour or so when Zelda clears Dueling Peaks and sees the stable beyond. She runs into no other trouble in the pass, though she does spy another camp of sleeping bokoblins on the opposite bank. It's only as she's already pulling up to the Dueling Peaks Stable and sees the recognition in the stable master's eyes that she realizes she might have another problem: how does she board Link's horse without looking like a horse thief? Will she even be allowed to take Link's horse back out in the morning?

She nudges the mare up to the teller, ready to deliver the most eloquent and succinct explanation her sleep-deprived brain can come up with, when the teller raises a hand. He takes one long look at her in her current state, then flicks a critical glance at the steed she's still sitting on. Then he shakes his head. "That boy rescued you, didn't he."

Well. Apparently looking like a damsel in distress and riding in on a local hero's horse is explanation enough for some people.

What the man—Tasserin, according to his nameplate—asks isn't even a question, not really. He states it like he already knows the answer. Zelda nods anyway. "Something like that," she replies. "Link is… recovering from a great battle." It's not _exactly_ a lie. "I'm riding to Kakariko for him, but I was ambushed on the road."

Tasserin nods. "We don't usually let other people board or take out horses that aren't theirs…" He trails off, stroking his beard. "…But I s'pose an exception can be made, just this once."

Zelda releases a breath she didn't realize she was holding. She really doesn't want to think about having to _walk_ to Kakariko looking like this. "Thank you," she says sincerely.

"It's no trouble," Tasserin replies. Then he points a finger at her sharply. "But next time I expect you to return that horse and catch your own. Only reason I'm not forcing you to turn that horse over right now is 'cause of the state you're in and 'cause she seems to like you." He lowers his finger, puts his hands flat on the desk, and leans forward. "We got a deal?"

"Yes, I understand." Zelda slides carefully from the mare's back and steps forward, studiously ignoring the light tug on her hair that lets her know the horse is nibbling at it again. "We have an accord."

Tasserin raises an eyebrow—at her word choice?—but doesn't comment. Instead, he calls to someone Zelda assumes to be a stable hand (a man who looks remarkably like Tasserin himself) and asks him to lead the horse into the stable. Zelda quickly unhooks the wrapped sword and grabs the sack of rupees from the saddlebag before leaving the hand to do his work. She takes this opportunity to ask Tasserin something she's been wondering all day. "What's her name?"

Tasserin peers at her suspiciously. "You mean he didn't tell you?"

Zelda gives him the blandest look she can muster. Link? Speak willingly and without prompting? Not likely.

Tasserin seems to realize this too, because he blinks at her expression, then laughs. 'My mistake. I see your point." He gives her a good-natured smile, his previous suspicion long forgotten. "That's horse."

Zelda squints at him. "Yes, the horse. What is her name?"

"No, no," Tasserin says amicably, "you misunderstand. Her name is 'Horse'." The man even raises his hands and makes air quotes around "horse" for emphasis.

Zelda was prepared for plenty of different responses. That was not one of them. "Her name…" she repeats slowly, "…is 'Horse'."

The look on her face must really be something to see, because Tasserin laughs again, deeper this time. "That's exactly what I said when he named her! But it's what he wanted, and the little lady herself doesn't seem to mind." He straightens up and gestures her inside. "Now come along, let's get you a bed. You can get on your way to Kakariko in the morning."

Zelda feels somewhat bad for spending Link's money while he's not around, but she resolves to pay him back when she finds him. She deposits the sacred weapons and sack of rupees—now twenty rupees lighter—into the lock chest at the foot of her bed and takes a moth-bitten towel (provided by Tasserin) out to the pond across the road from the stable. The pond is clean and clear, something that seemingly sprung up around the Sheikah Shrine there sometime over the last century. The shrine glows the same blue as the tower she passed on the trip here, but in the moonlight it seems softer, gentler. It's enough light to have a bath by, anyway. She wishes nothing more than to investigate the shrine; the shuttered door of her memories is open on this one, and it would be so easy to just go inside, take a quick look around. But she's tired, sore, and on a quest that doesn't permit her to waste time right now, so she takes her bath in silence, surrounded not by humming machinery and ancient glyphs but by cricket chirps and firefly lights.

When she's finished with her bath she has no choice but to put on her old clothes. The grimy, bloody, ripped remnants of her dress feel crispy and uncomfortably stiff against her freshly scrubbed skin, but she is not going to risk sleeping naked in a stable inn full of strangers. With that done, she goes back to the stable, hangs her towel on a clothesline, crawls into bed, and goes to sleep.

* * *

**x**

**A/N (PLEASE READ):**

**Sorry about how late this is. Unfortunately, real life takes precedence over writing and many things happened over the last half year that I had to deal with before spending my time writing fic.**

**Originally I was gonna have the Zelda/Impa reunion in this chapter, but with it included the whole chapter became 4k words longer and was still incomplete. So that'll be something for Zelda's next chapter. It's already close to finished, just needs a lot of polishing before it's done.**

**I mentioned this briefly before, but I thought I'd remind everyone that I'll be changing and fleshing out details of ****Halkeginia's geography for the sake of this story. Hyrule's geography will remain as close to the game as possible. **_**This was always part of my plan, **_**and is partly because Hyrule is very fleshed out/complete in canon and Halkeginia is very… not. So canon Halkeginian locations will still exist, they'll just be moved around. Some of that detail-fudging might show up in the next chapter. Promise it's not for nothing, though.**

**I hope everyone's finals and holidays went well. Until next time!**


End file.
